For Love of Chocolate
by TaraSoleil
Summary: Hermione leaned in, whispering conspiratorially, "My aunt sneaks me sweets when she travels. Remember I told you? Well, this time it's Belgian chocolates." She chirped excitedly and pushed him aside. He snuck around her, simultaneously inching for the door and steeling himself for the hex she would undoubtedly be throwing at him. "REMUS LUPIN!" she shouted and spun on the spot.


For Love of Chocolate

The cool air rolled over his back, lowering his body temperature enough to make him shiver. It was glorious.

August was turning out to be even more unbearable than July. The heat hit record highs every day and even magic couldn't hold it off for long. The magic chill chest was his only hope of not dying from a heatstroke. Remus didn't care if the milk spoiled while he basked in the gloriously cold air.

As he stood, his eyes fell on the food. He wasn't hungry, but the wolf in him always urged him on, making him want to take even when he was full or when what he took wasn't his. That had gotten him into trouble as a child. At Hogwarts it was fine, the House Elves in the kitchen were more than willing to accommodate his unending appetite. In the Burrow, however, there was always something tempting him. Today it was a box of sugar-free 'sweets' with a hot pink sticky note on it reading, 'Hermione's. Don't Touch!'

The girl really should have known better by now. Even with the twins gone to their own apartment, nothing was safe when so labelled, especially when one knew the contents. The sugar-free package could only fool people for so long. Remus knew the girl's aunt sent her candy from every continent disguised in such a way to appease and fool Hermione's dentist parents.

"So where was Auntie Imogen travelling this summer?" he asked himself, thinking back through all the conversations he had with Hermione since she arrived. It took him quite some time, as the girl had been surprisingly talkative all summer, finding anything and everything worth discussion and debate. He had enjoyed it, though now he was getting annoyed since it meant he had rather a lot to sift through to find the answer he sought.

"Belgium!" he remembered triumphantly.

Belgium…

Belgium meant chocolate.

Belgium meant _the best_ chocolate.

Licking his lips, he lifted the box and opened the lid. He just wanted to smell it. Even dulled by cold, the aroma was mouth-watering. His long fingers moved of their own accord, lifting a chocolate from the tray and popping it into his mouth. It tasted like nothing at first, the cold robbed the confection of its flavour, but, as it sat on his tongue, it melted and coated every taste bud and rolled down his throat where it met a pleasured moan. He had thought the girl insane for leaving her chocolates in the most public room of the house, and asked her why the previous summer. Hermione said she liked her chocolate to be cold when she ate it because of this very sensation; this was the orgasmic delight she had described to him. Even though she was still too young and inexperienced to understand the absolutely sensual experience and she hadn't used the word 'orgasmic', she was right. She was always right.

Lost in bliss, his fingers reached back into the tray and stole another chocolate, placing it into his mouth to melt into his moans, then another and another until his thieving fingers found only moulded plastic. His eyes fell on the empty tray.

"Oh, shit," he swore and closed the box, throwing it back on the shelf and slamming the door to the chill chest closed. He leaned heavily against it, his eyes darting nervously to the clock and wondering if he had time to owl the chocolate shop in Diagon Alley. It wouldn't be the same, but he had to replace the chocolates with something to make up for his blind gluttony.

"Good afternoon, Remus," Hermione said brightly as she practically skipped into the kitchen.

"Hello," he said nervously and swore loudly and colourfully to himself. "Why are you so happy?"

"I'm allowed to be happy," she replied defensively, but softened almost instantly. "But if you must know, I have something special I've been saving."

"Special?" he asked, refusing to budge from in front of the door to the chill chest even as she stood there waiting for him to get out of her way. He cursed the wolf for making him so wanton, always eating, always 'borrowing'. Sirius never forgave him for stealing his things at Hogwarts, even when he returned them in better condition than when he took them.

Hermione leaned in, whispering conspiratorially, "My aunt sneaks me sweets when she travels. Remember I told you? Well, this time it's Belgian chocolates." She chirped excitedly and pushed him aside. He snuck around her, simultaneously inching for the door and steeling himself for the hex she would undoubtedly be throwing at him.

"REMUS LUPIN!" she shouted and spun on the spot, her eyes huge and face flushed with anger.

"What?" he asked, his face a perfect mask of innocence.

"You!" She threw the lid to the floor and practically shoved the empty tray in his face. "You ate my chocolate!"

"No, I didn't," he said. Had it been anyone else, they would have believed him, but Hermione could smell a liar a mile away and she glared her anger at him. "Maybe it was Sirius."

"Sirius doesn't indulge in chocolate only scotch, single-malt, aged no less than ten years," she replied flatly. "Molly would have just asked and Ginny knows better, Harry prefers Cadbury, Ron only eats Chocolate Frogs and Arthur is allergic. That leaves only you."

"Ah," he said, backing away from her.

The girl advanced on him slowly, eyes narrowing with each step. He was a grown man, twice her age, twice her mass and over a foot taller than her, but he kept backing away. The traitorous wall blocked his retreat from progressing any further but she still kept coming, breaching his personal space and stopping with only inches between them. If he could have, Remus would have climbed the wall to escape the girl's anger.

"I was saving that," she ground out as she came to a stop in front of him.

Her petite hand fisted in the front of his shirt and pulled him down so his eyes were level with hers. "Do you know how many conversations about Quidditch I had to endure for that chocolate? It was my reward for being more social."

"You need a reward for that?" he asked, then promptly cringed and bit down on his tongue.

"I am trying to get away from my books more, have conversations with real, live people," she growled. "But YOU stole my reward."

Her eyes dropped to his mouth. Normally, he would have been excited by a beautiful girl backing him against a wall, grabbing a fistful of his clothing and staring as intently at his lips as Hermione was, but this wasn't quite that kind of situation. He swallowed hard and realized he could still taste the chocolate in his mouth and that he hadn't wiped his face. She wasn't staring at his mouth. She was staring at the evidence, rich and chocolaty and velvety smooth, on his lips.

"You ate it just now!" she realized and glared at him. "There's still chocolate on your lips, you bastard!" Her mouth set in a line and her nostrils flared. Remus wondered when the wand would come out to hex him into the oblivion. Most werewolves didn't live long, but he hadn't imagined he would die because of chocolate.

His life began to flash before his eyes as he stared into the dark brown eyes of his former student, anger and longing written all over her face. He was nearing his third year of Hogwarts, not a bad year excepting the unfortunate Naked Great Hall Incident in October, which he had nearly forgotten about, when his brain practically shut down. Clever Remus Lupin couldn't process the sight before his eyes nor the sensation on his lips.

Hermione was… kissing him?

Her soft pink lips pressed firmly against his, moving in a way he had never dreamed they would. Gasping in shock, excitement and only a small amount of horror, he accidentally allowed her tongue to sweep into his mouth. It danced over his own, tasting every inch before tracing his teeth and reaching into every hidden recess to steal his flavour into her mouth. He was more than strong enough to push her away, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. And then she moaned, deep and throaty; the sound ran through his whole body and stole the strength from his knees.

She broke from him, leaving him gasping for breath while she stood inches from him, eyes closed, licking her lips with abandon. Even as she pulled the last of his taste from her lower lip, her eyes opened languidly, her dark gaze staring at his gaping mouth. She ran a thumb over his bottom lip.

Brain frozen, he watched as she took that thumb into her mouth and sucked it clean, purring in contentment even before she took the digit from between her lips. He was aware enough to note the high pitched whimper filling the room. It took him several breaths to realize it was coming from him. He swallowed hard and bit down on his lip, but managed to make the sound stop.

After a moment more, Hermione moaned, "Best chocolate _ever_."

He could only stare at her in reply.

"I'm even angrier now," she informed him. "Go get your wallet. You are Apparating us to Belgium and buying me twice what you just stole."

Shoving him aside, she strolled from the kitchen, leaving him to stutter out a response to the empty room.

"Oh," she said conversationally, popping her head through the door. "If you ever steal my chocolate again, I will kill you and no one will ever find your body. Cleverest witch of my age, remember?"

Blinking back his astonishment, Remus managed to pull himself up to his normal height with considerable help from the wall. He adjusted his shirt and ran a hand through his hair, calming his nerves and trying not to imagine what Hermione would do if he crossed her a second time. A kiss for the first offense… what would she do for the second?

A slow, mischievous grin spread across his face as his remaining guilty feelings fell away; they might come back later but as he licked the last of Hermione's taste off his lips he had only one thought in his mind:

"What a way to go."


End file.
